What it is
A body has a name made of several words, and only some of them begin with a capital. Which ones is settled differently in each language, and the settlement covers the offices inside the body as well: the chamber that heard a case, the directorate that produced a report.
All the options are in use. A community may capitalize every substantive word, the first noun alone, or the first noun with an adjective standing before it, and it may or may not keep the capital on the short form used later in the same text.
The wording that introduces a body, and the short form a text adopts for it, belong with short-titles-and-abbreviated-citation. This record owns the capital on the words of the name, in the full form and in the short one.
Where the expectation comes from
Two orthography authorities and one language academy rule this class, and one institutional guide rules its own texts against them.
- The Amtliches Regelwerk der deutschen Rechtschreibung, 2024 edition, provides at § 60 that "In mehrteiligen Eigennamen mit nichtsubstantivischen Bestandteilen schreibt man das erste Wort und alle weiteren Wörter außer Artikel, Präpositionen und Konjunktionen groß", its printed instances including "Deutscher Bundestag", and it occupies chapter D of that code.
- Türk Dil Kurumu's Yazım Kuralları capitalize every word of the name of a kurum, kuruluş or kurul, in "Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi" and "Türk Dil Kurumu".
- The Académie française gives the French rule with its ninth edition. Where a body is alone of its kind the capital goes on the first word needed to identify it "ainsi que les adjectifs le précédant éventuellement"; where several of the kind exist the capital falls instead on the specifying name beside them, "la cour d'appel de Versailles". An adjective that follows keeps its small letter, which is the whole of the asymmetry below.
- The English Style Guide puts initial capitals on all nouns and adjectives of a title written out in full, at 4.5, excepting permanent EU bodies and official EU functions, which take a capital in singular and plural alike; generic descriptions do not, at 4.8; and a short form referring back drops to lower case, at 4.7.
The value moves from House to Codified, on § 60 and on the Turkish rule, and the ground is the axis test rather than a count of sources. A German text writing "Deutscher bundestag", or a Turkish one writing "türk dil kurumu", is wrong to any competent reader of those communities, and correcting it would take a change in the code. English is the stated counter-case: with no orthography authority behind it, the governing rule there is a house rule and the same deviation is a preference outside that body's work.
Consequences for translation
The conversion is determinate, and it is not a transformation of the source.
- Nothing codified rules the relation between two language versions of one body's name. Each version applies its own community's rule from the beginning, so a translator who derives the target capitalization from the source form has reached for the wrong instrument.
- The short form is a separate decision, and the communities split on it. English lower-cases it, Turkish keeps the capital, and French keeps it only where the word is immediately preceded by a definite determiner. Carrying the source's treatment across gets one of the three right by accident.
- Compliance is mechanically checkable, which makes the class worth a terminology entry rather than a judgement call, and makes a finding that names a language without naming an authority incomplete in English and complete in German.
Examples
EN>DE
- Source: Having regard to the opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee,
- Target: nach Stellungnahme des Europäischen Wirtschafts- und Sozialausschusses,
- Comment: Regulation (EU) 2016/1191, preamble, English and German official versions. The adjective is capitalized in German because § 60 capitalizes every further word of a multi-part proper name that is not an article, a preposition or a conjunction. The code holds the expectation, not the institution.
EN>FR
- Source: the European Commission
- Target: la Commission européenne
- Comment: The same preamble in the French version. Only the head noun takes the capital, as the Académie's rule predicts for a body alone of its kind with the adjective following. A translator keeping the English pattern would write "la Commission Européenne", which reads as an anglicism, not a house preference.
FR>EN
- Source: Par ces motifs, la Cour (deuxième chambre) dit pour droit:
- Target: On those grounds, the Court (Second Chamber) hereby rules:
- Comment: Case C-391/09, the operative part in both versions. The formation is one of the few elements of a judgment set in running case, the words naming the Court standing in full capitals at the head of both. Here the governing rule is the English guide's, at 4.5.
References
- Amtliches Regelwerk der deutschen Rechtschreibung, 2024 edition, adopted on the basis of the decision of the Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung of 15 December 2023. Chapter D, Groß- und Kleinschreibung, §§ 60 to 62, read in the edition published by the Council's own secretariat at the Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache.
- Türk Dil Kurumu, Yazım Kuralları, "Büyük harflerin kullanıldığı yerler", read on the institution's own page at tdk.gov.tr. The rule on the names of kurum, kuruluş and kurul, cited here by its wording.
- Dictionnaire de l'Académie française, ninth edition, questions de langue entry QDL047 "Majuscules", on the Académie's own dictionary portal, which states that these rules were applied in drawing up the first volume of that edition.
- English Style Guide. Directorate-General for Translation, European Commission, eighth edition January 2016, file consulted 3 August 2026. Sections 4.5 (Titles of organisations, institutions, directorates, units, sections, office holders, committees, delegations, etc.), 4.7 (Short forms) and 4.8 (Generic descriptions).
- Regulation (EU) 2016/1191, English, French and German language versions, preamble.
- Judgment of 12 May 2011 in Case C-391/09, Runevič-Vardyn and Wardyn, ECLI:EU:C:2011:291, English and French language versions, head of judgment and operative part.